UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s Gender Equity Center is continuing to expand its programming to further its mission of supporting students who have been impacted by sexual violence, relationship violence, stalking, harassment and other campus climate issues.
The office provides one-on-one direct services, such as prevention education services and crisis intervention, advocacy and support. This includes 17 standard workshops and custom workshops upon request. It also features two peer education programs: Greeks CARE — a collaboration between the center and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life — and It’s On Us Penn State, which seeks to prevent sexual violence and support survivors.
Student Affairs has supported the reimagining of the center and provided additional resources to bolster the center’s leadership on violence prevention issues. Through these adjustments, the center will continue supporting the University’s Commonwealth Campuses. The center will deliver violence-prevention programming and education to the campuses while giving light to current programming.
The center has expanded its Prevention Education Team by absorbing the roles of Stand for State and investing in new programs. It is revitalizing Men Against Violence, launching an Ambassadors Program and introducing the program Flip the Script with EAAAA, the Enhanced Assess Acknowledged Act. The center has also expanded its historical support of students navigating pregnancy, and parental staff.
The Prevention Education Team now consists of three full-time Gender Equity staff members, including Jacob Frank — a current Penn State student who will take on the role of program coordinator for men’s engagement and peer education upon graduation this spring.
“I think a lot of what’s being done is to expand and grow so we can equip students with the knowledge to create change on campus and beyond,” Frank said. “We want to give everybody a toolbox of knowledge on the topic of healthy relationships, because word of mouth is so crucial in college, and that’s the only way we’re going to get anything to change.”
Frank will help develop the center’s programming for male identifying students, including Men Against Violence, launched in 2000 to bring men into the conversation of violence prevention.
Although the program saw a decrease in participation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the center is reviving Men Against Violence — as well as investing in the It’s On Us Penn State peer education initiatives — upon absorption of the Stand for State office. Stand for State will be integrated with and rebranded as part of the It's On Us Penn State initiative.
Stand for State was a stand-alone bystander intervention program intended to teach students how to take action against violence. It was launched University-wide in 2016 but experienced a decrease in staffing during the pandemic. Although the center supported the program during the pandemic, it officially took over Stand for State’s responsibility and mission in fall 2022.
“Even prior to the creation of Stand for State, this office has always committed to bystander intervention programming, because that is the primary tool used to prevent and eliminate violence,” said Becca Geiger Wallen, the associate director of the Gender Equity Center. “We know that the majority of men will never commit an act of violence, but when we look at the demographics of perpetrators, the majority of perpetrators are men. This really is everyone’s issue, but men play a huge role in addressing the behavior of friends, teammates, roommates and buddies to stop it before it starts.”
Previously, Wallen served as the assistant director of the Gender Equity Center. With the reimagining and strengthening of prevention education, Wallen was promoted to associate director and a second program coordinator position was created. These changes to the Prevention Education Team will allow for greater research, development, evaluation and assessment of the center’s offerings.
To increase awareness of its resources, the center has created an Ambassadors Program. This program will help inform faculty and staff about the center’s work, teach them how to initiate conversations with students they suspect have experienced violence, and show them how to connect students with vital resources.
As an additional expansion of the center’s educational offerings, it will also bring to campus the Flip the Script program with EAAA, a curriculum dedicated to changing the narrative on gender roles and expectations while meeting the needs of a gender-diverse population. This includes discussions of sex, sexuality and realistic self-defense. Flip the Script with EAA will serve as the counterpart to Men Against Violence.
While the Gender Equity Center has always provided support to students who are pregnant or experiencing reproductive health care matters, it is now designated as a primary support for these students.
Reproductive rights and health care promote a major barrier to gender equity, explained Wallen. Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, there is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, including pregnancy and parental status, in educational programs and activities.
The center can assist a student in obtaining supportive measures or academic accommodations to continue their academic career, as well as send those accommodations to faculty members upon a student’s request. For more information, please connect with the Gender Equity Center staff at 814-863-2027 or genderequity@psu.edu.
The center, now housed in 222U Boucke, hopes to host an official open house in September.
It will continue providing education, advocacy, referrals, crisis intervention and support for victim survivors. All services are free and confidential. Those interested in arranging an appointment with an advocate can do so at this link.
“We want to raise up Penn State’s leadership on these issues and be the institution creating programs — creating materials that other universities and institutions are looking at to develop and model their programs after,” Wallen said.
For more information on the Gender Equity Center, follow @PennStateGenEq on Facebook and Instagram. Questions can be directed to 814-863-2027 and genderequity@psu.edu. The office is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The Gender Equity Center was founded in 1985 as the Center for Women Students through the work of the President’s Commission for Women and student activists who recommended the creation of a center to support the needs of female students. The center initially focused on serving as an advocacy unit for female students surrounding sexual harassment, classroom treatment, institutionalized sexism and sex-based discrimination.
In 2017, the center changed its name to the Gender Equity Center to be more inclusive of the identities of the victim survivors it was serving. Today, the center’s mission is to create a campus culture where all students feel safe, supported, valued and respected through access to a full range of services, under the belief that everyone deserves healthy relationships that enable their success at Penn State and beyond.